Browsing All Posts filed under »Non-Fiction«

Kirsten soared in the stiff breeze on a floating sky island, 1500 feet above the surrounding mile high mesquite desert, smiling as always. We had been invited to run some publisher workshops for the Cochise College Creative Writing Celebration the last weekend in March. (read more . . .)

Last night Kirsten and went to a lecture by Michael Soule', father of the conservation biology movement. I credit Soule for adding value back to his science of ecology by doing something about it, including founding the Wildlands Network to create wildlife corridors that enable adequate migration to protect species necessary genetic diversity. [read more . . .]

The ever increasing extent of industrial/political cronyism in the U.S. economy is a serious concern. Seeking Alpha is a website from my old investment world which looks for trends and places to earn increased returns. Hazel Henderson reviews Jeremy Rifkin's new book there, The Third Industrial Revolution. In an alarming statement Henderson says, "My colleague Dr. James Fletcher on the Technology Assessment Advisory Board to the US Congress told us at a meeting in the 1970s that if the US had subsidized solar-based energies to the same extent it subsidized oil, coal, gas and nuclear energy, that our country would already be run on solar and renewables. Fletcher went on to become Administrator of NASA, the US space program. . . . However, as I found in the 1980s, the barriers were the incumbent fossil and nuclear industries whose influence over Congress kept their huge subsidies and forced renewables to climb a steeply-tilted playing field." Rifkin has solutions. Let me know if you read the book. . . . more>>

According to The Christian Science Monitor in a reader recommendation, psychiatrist, contemplative theologian, counselor, teacher, writer, and Shalem Institute fellow Gerald G. May wrote his last book, The Wisdom of Wilderness, as he was dying. We journey with him into the wilderness, which he says is “not just a place; [but] also a state of being.” He guides us to what is natural and wild in our own lives – and to the healing grace of nature. Sounds good, I haven't read it yet, if anyone does, please let us know your thoughts.

Gernot Wagner is, as he admits amusingly, a seeming contradiction: an environmental economist. Readers will perceive a second contradiction: he's an economist and policy wonk who you would actually want to talk to at a party. Unintended consequences are always a bugaboo with government policy. Wagner explains in his new book But Will the Planet Notice, How Smart Economics Can Save the Worldwhy the no expenses spared aspect of the Endangered Species Act makes it do more harm than good, but why a cap and trade is imperative. . . . more>>

. . . backcountry rangers are like the adjunct professors who teach more than half all all university classes.. They do the work, but they have no job security from one year to the next. They have no pension plans and far fewer benefits than permanent employees. And Randy Morgenson was past the middle of his career. His marriage was going downhill. One day, he missed his radio check, part of the routine for backcountry rangers who camped out and worked alone. And the next day. His colleagues grew worried. . . more>>